The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.
An imaging device is a device capable of processing an electronic document. For example, an imaging device may generate an electronic version of a printed document or generate a printed version of an electronic document. For example, a scanner and a printer are each examples of an imaging device.
Imaging devices typically support a variety of features. For example, the types of features that a printer may support include stapling a document after printing, printing on both sides of a page, and printing documents on paper of various sizes.
When a user uses an imaging device, typically a user is presented with a current configuration for the features supported by the imaging device. Thereafter, the user may customize the current configuration to create a customized configuration for a specific use of the imaging device. For example, in response to issuing a print request to a printer, the user may be presented an interface that displays a current configuration for the printer. The user may use the interface to either accept the current configuration, or specify a customized configuration for the printer.
Unfortunately, the current configuration of an imaging device is usually established at the time the imaging device is first deployed on a network. As a result, the current configuration of an imaging device may not reflect how users are actually using the imaging device. Thus, each time a user employs the imaging device, that user must spend time creating a customized configuration for a particular use. The more a customized configuration deviates from the current configuration, the more time and effort is required on behalf of the user to create the customized configuration.
In certain imaging devices, an administrator may update the current configuration of the imaging device after the imaging device has been deployed. However, this places an undue burden on the administrator, as the administrator must determine the composition of a revised configuration of the imaging device, and make an effort to update the current configuration of the imaging device to reflect the revised configuration. Consequently, an improved approach for updating the configuration of an imaging device, which avoids the disadvantages of prior approaches, is desirable.